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The best possible outcome for me not excluding everyone is absolutely nothing. The best possible outcome for the woman being excluded is getting a promotion.

So to recap private, closed door meetings
My upside: none. My downside: losing my job and having trouble finding another
Her upside: getting a promotion. Her downside: not getting a promotion

From a straight risk/benefit, it makes no sense. There is only downside for me and no upside. All the upside is on her end and she has much less downside.

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I disagree. You're making your whole organization weaker by creating blind spots for you and overvaluing your male direct reports contributions. You will eventually promote weaker people. (weaker in the sense that you may have developed a female colleague further than the male one)

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The rest of my post was just me justifying protecting my livelihood. I am not greedy or ambitious. I like my job, I help people, I support my family, and I get to be generous. Those are all things worth protecting. I don't really see a "Christian" imperative in this situation to risk my entire livelihood to ensure someone else has the possibility of career advancement. This is an entirely secular issue.

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Again, I am not sure why you are measuring your livelihood against her "career advancement". it's her livelihood too. It's her family. its her generosity. it's her helping people.

For me, it enters into the Christian realm in that I can see how someone being held down in their career can be like being the one who was robbed on the side of the road.

I'm still confused about the whole desire for lack of fairness even with the risk. If a CEO said "yeah, I want to be protected from greed by delivering worse financial performance", the shareholders would be right in saying hes unfit, right? Likewise, if someone has direct reports that should be developed and leveraged for the company, why do we want leaders who are unable to meet with them 1 on 1? Again, seems unfit.

Ok, so my upside is now a possible 10%? improvement in my company, and my downside is still loss of my job and trouble finding another. I don't think that changes the math all that much, and I still don't see a Christian imperative here. We're still entirely in the secular realm.

I entirely get your point. It's not a woman's fault that some unscrupulous men have been dirtbags for decades and used their positions of power in the workplace to exploit and harass women. However, some unscrupulous women have taken advantage of the current climate to attack male coworkers and supervisors for selfish purposes. And I'm not a BGR person usually. I work with plenty of women that I know so well I don't even think twice about it. I just understand the sentiment and am cautious with new women coworkers. This is both to protect myself and maintain a professional image in my small town.

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Again, I am not sure why you are measuring your livelihood against her "career advancement". it's her livelihood too. It's her family. its her generosity. it's her helping people.

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I think I addressed this pretty well already. Her downside is not getting a promotion. Mine is losing my job. That's a pretty big risk difference. In her bad scenario, she still has a job, a livelihood, and an income. Just theoretically less than otherwise. In my bad scenario, I'm unemployed and less employable.

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think I addressed this pretty well already. Her downside is not getting a promotion. Mine is losing my job. That's a pretty big risk difference. In her bad scenario, she still has a job, a livelihood, and an income. Just theoretically less than otherwise. In my bad scenario, I'm unemployed and less employable.

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My point is that you're looking at it too transactionally. Her downside isn't just not getting a promotion. It's a knock-on effect that reverberates through the whole system: her work contributions, her development, how she sees herself, etc. All things you didn't have to contend with to get to where you are (speaking very generally here. everyones got their own things)

And, it goes back to the burden of leadership. If you can't take the risk, then don't take the job. (or, as I have said, apply BGR across the board)

All of those downsides apply to me as well, but much, much worse. No matter what, we're comparing the effects of not getting a promotion to getting fired with cause. Whether it's lifetime earnings, self-esteem, community respect, or anything else you want to bring up, my downside is always much, much worse

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I don't think that changes the math all that much, and I still don't see a Christian imperative here. We're still entirely in the secular realm.

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I get it. I don't want to play the "go search for a verse" game. I just struggle with the notion that treating someone unfairly purely no the cost/benefit analysis of a false accusation passes Christian muster.

if we have to have a verse, id say it fails the "treat your neighbors as yourselves" test. it doesn't say "treat your neighbors as yourselves unless it causes you great personal risk".

I can understand if others don't see it that way.

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All of those downsides apply to me as well, but much, much worse. No matter what, we're comparing the effects of not getting a promotion to getting fired with cause. Whether it's lifetime earnings, self-esteem, community respect, or anything else you want to bring up, my downside is always much, much worse

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I get that in a very narrow view, you can see it this way. I really can't offer more than: that's the cost of standing up for what's right.

Doesn't say treat. It says love. Those aren't necessarily the same thing.

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Doesn't say treat. It says love. Those aren't necessarily the same thing.

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Flesh that out more. What are the implications of that difference...or what makes you think that I am applying it differently than it needs to be applied.

edit: sorry for the winky face. i had a snarky response and didn't go with it.

I think loving your neighbor as yourself isn't the same as treating your neighbor as yourself. Loving your neighbor can be doing things your neighbor never knows, or realizes have anything to do with them. It's quite a bit more powerful than just direct interactions or treating people as you would prefer to be treated.

There's a pretty big difference between "treat all my employees the same" and "love all of my employees sacrificially."

For example, loving someone may involve personal self-denial, rather than some kind of positive interaction toward them.

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I think loving your neighbor as yourself isn't the same as treating your neighbor as yourself. Loving your neighbor can be doing things your neighbor never knows, or realizes have anything to do with them. It's quite a bit more powerful than just direct interactions or treating people as you would prefer to be treated.

There's a pretty big difference between "treat all my employees the same" and "love all of my employees sacrificially."

For example, loving someone may involve personal self-denial, rather than some kind of positive interaction toward them.

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so we can go from general to contextual - you believe that the BGR applied to women only is loving them as a neighbor.

I'm not arguing for the BGR. I don't follow it, personally. I do think that the idea of avoiding any situation with the appearance of misconduct or impropriety is not only a good idea from a pragmatic view but also an ethical imperative. It protects all parties involved. It may protect parties against their wishes. This isn't specific to male-female interactions but any sort of professional activity.

Edit to add: avoiding the appearance of impropriety absolutely involves considering your behavior with regard for the other people involved, and absolutely demands situational behavior and decisions.

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I get it. I don't want to play the "go search for a verse" game. I just struggle with the notion that treating someone unfairly purely no the cost/benefit analysis of a false accusation passes Christian muster.

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We're to be martyrs for Christ. Christian martrydom is powerful and transformative. When Christians accept persecution so that they can continue to worship and dedicate their lives to helping others, then that act reverberates. There is no benefit, from a secular or Christian perspective, to exposing yourself to a false accusation. On top of that, it hurts your witness and makes your word less credible, even if you didn't do anything wrong.

It's also interesting to see the shift in the workplace. The Billy Graham rule in particular was not created to protect men from false accusations. It was created to protect men and women from both apparent and actual workplace impropriety. The fact that it is mainly used as a protection from false accusations of sexual harassment says volumes about our workplace environment these days.

There are other ethical ways to look at this besides a single case "do no harm" approach.

How about a teleological test. The goal is to avoid or reduce both sexual harassment and false claims, right? Does it actually accomplish this? Is it consequentially justifiable? A different form - can it survive as a universal maxim? If every male or female supervisor avoided the appearance of improper behavior with subordinates of the opposite sex, would the world be a better or worse place? Would there be any major problems that arose? Would the costs outweigh the benefits?

There is also the concept of duty. We have duties toward others, and those duties vary from different people and can sometimes be in conflict. I think that's the biggest issue here is multiple duties in various hierarchies:

- a person has the duty to treat everyone with justice
- a person has the duty to develop their employees
- a person has the duty to optimize revenue for their employer
- a person has the duty to be benevolent or loving toward others
- a person has the duty to protect and provide for their family
- a person has the duty to protect their reputation and the reputation of others
- a person has the duty to act in good conscience toward their faith

None of these are wrong, but they can certainly conflict, and it isn't as simple as well if you treat everyone equitably it'll all work out.

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The goal is to avoid or reduce both sexual harassment and false claims, right?

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No. The goal is to avoid those things while developing one's employees and accomplishing the goals of the group.

And therein lies the rub.

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We're to be martyrs for Christ. Christian martrydom is powerful and transformative. When Christians accept persecution so that they can continue to worship and dedicate their lives to helping others, then that act reverberates. There is no benefit, from a secular or Christian perspective, to exposing yourself to a false accusation. On top of that, it hurts your witness and makes your word less credible, even if you didn't do anything wrong.

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This assumes that one's credibility is also not lost through the means of accomplishing this protection from false accusation. I don't believe this is the case.

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It's also interesting to see the shift in the workplace. The Billy Graham rule in particular was not created to protect men from false accusations. It was created to protect men and women from both apparent and actual workplace impropriety. The fact that it is mainly used as a protection from false accusations of sexual harassment says volumes about our workplace environment these days.

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I don't think it's nearly the issue that this thread thinks it is (false accusations), and speaks to more of the "me culture" than anything.

edit: I will clarify - in the wake of the "believe all women" silliness, men seem to have clung to something as a pushback when its not really that necessary.

That's just being finicky, obviously getting the goals of "the group" is a given.

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I don't think it's nearly the issue that this thread thinks it is (false accusations), and speaks to more of the "me culture" than anything.

edit: I will clarify - in the wake of the "believe all women" silliness, men seem to have clung to something as a pushback when its not really that necessary.

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Yeah, things are the way they are for a reason. Most everything is a reaction or overreaction to something else. Every time I read a stupid warning label I realized that someone did the thing they are warning against. Every time I see an insurance company deny a doctor's order I realize that some doctors were wasting a lot of money in the past. In this situation, the "believe all women" is a reaction to decades of men abusing their power in the workplace. The reemphasis of the BGR is a reaction to "believe all women" and the fear of false accusations.

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That's just being finicky, obviously getting the goals of "the group" is a given.

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I don't think so. it's very easy to ignore that part and simply just try and solve the "harassment/false accusation" issue in a vacuum.

If that were the case you'd just say I won't go to work or be around women ever. Done. Nobody is arguing that. They're saying they'll get their job done and also do these things. Anyway, minds being changed here: zero.

So I was thinking about this more. Rules, laws, and contracts exist because bad actors exist. If everyone always did the right thing by each other, then we would have no need for these things. People clearly don't act that way, so there needs to be some rule, law, or contract to prevent bad actions or punish those who act badly.

The Billy Graham Rule was originally formulated to prevent men and women from inappropriate but mutually consentual workplace behavior, and it also prevented bad 3rd parties from levelling allegations of inappropriate behavior. As an unintended consequence, it also prevents inappropriate harassement by bosses and protects against baseless allegations by those subordinate. As stated in the posts above, this rule probably impedes the ability of women to advance in the workplace, and likely has some negative effect on company performance.

We know that people have inappropriate consensual behavior at the workplace. We know that some bosses harass subordinates, and we know that some subordinates bring baseless allegations. So there needs to be some law, rule, or contract or combination of these that protects people from bad actors or punishes the bad actors. For all the criticism of the Billy Graham rule, I haven't heard any alternatives that protect against inappropriate consensual behavior, harassment, and false allegations. Empowerment of HR departments and the "believe all women rule" certainly protect against harassment, but it doesn't do anything for the other two major issues.

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For all the criticism of the Billy Graham rule, I haven't heard any alternatives that protect against inappropriate consensual behavior, harassment, and false allegations. Empowerment of HR departments and the "believe all women rule" certainly protect against harassment, but it doesn't do anything for the other two major issues.

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I don't know. The "inappropriate consensual behavior" is a strange one. The road to cheating paved by blowing through many stop signs along the way. You know when you're forming an emotional bond with someone that you shouldn't be.

I said earlier that a good rule is not complaining about your spouse to someone of the opposite sex.

Harassment and false accusations have their own rules against them anyway. What people don't like is how they are enforced or what value their company puts on them (ie, HR is protect the company, not the person).

Even still...the BGR is just fine if you enforce it across the board. But there seems to be an unwillingness to do so.

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Even still...the BGR is just fine if you enforce it across the board. But there seems to be an unwillingness to do so.

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Agreed. I think with the amount of gender fluidity and sexual preference variation occuring these days, that will be the inevitable next step. Matching gender may not mean anything in this context in a decade. If I'm putting on my futurist hat, I think the more likely thing is constant audio and video surveillance in the workplace. Think police bodycams for everyone.

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If I'm putting on my futurist hat, I think the more likely thing is constant audio and video surveillance in the workplace. Think police bodycams for everyone.

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eh, the only avenue I see this happening is if the complete office model collapses and every traditional office building goes WFH. Then, I can see a permanent recording feature on whatever collaboration platform.

But again, someone has to pay for all that, and today's times should tell you that companies are already making the most cost effective solution for them: ignore it as much as possible, make an example out of a few, and who cares about the ramifications of those who don't work them (ever or anymore)

edit: i think any like retail or customer-facing interface will be replaced by technology before going to body cams - ie, like Mcdonalds workers.